Are islands on which China eyes lighthouses ours?

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario: Validating. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is verifying whether some of the five islands on which China has said it plans to build lighthouses are located in Philippine waters, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said.

For this reason, the DFA cannot yet comment on the report that China intends to build lighthouses on five islands in the South China Sea, two of them said to be in waters also being claimed by Vietnam.

“Because we are not sure… we have to validate before we speak about it,” Del Rosario told reporters on Monday.

The DFA has to “first determine where those places are, whether they are part of the Kalayaan group of islands or (are in) our exclusive economic zone” before making a response, said Assistant Secretary Charles Jose, the DFA spokesman.

“Our policy office is still studying that,” Jose said.

Chinese state media last week said Chinese authorities had been surveying sites since July 7 for lighthouses on five islands, known in English as North Reef, Antelope Reef, Drummond Island, South Sand and Pyramid Rock.

Paracels group 

It was reported that Drummond Island and Pyramid Rock are in the Paracels group, which is controlled by China but claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

It was not certain whether the other three islets were also located in disputed waters.

The report of China’s latest move in the disputed areas of the South China Sea came as the Philippines campaigned for and obtained support from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on a triple action plan (TAP) to ease tensions there during the just-concluded Asean ministerial meeting in Burma (Myanmar).

The plan, which the United States also supports, proposes a freeze in activities that might escalate tension in the disputed waters.

Exercise self-restraint 

With Asean agreeing to put the TAP under further study, Del Rosario suggested that the regional association look at Article 5 of the 2002 Declaration of Conduct in the South China Sea (DOC) which Asean and China signed and “see how (to) operationalize that.”

Article 5 calls for the parties concerned to exercise self-restraint.

“I mean when you say practice self-restraint, maybe, as US State Secretary John Kerry had said, you can say that there should be no building of massive reclamation, we should not engage in massive reclamation. That’s a start. We should not occupy unoccupied features. That’s a second start,” he said.

“So let’s try to build confidence if we can do that but the DOC has been there since 2002. We keep talking about it but nobody follows it,” Del Rosario said.

Implementing DOC 

He also said there was a need for Asean to remind China about implementing the DOC.

“I think if Asean can make the point with China strongly that we should have a serious, effective implementation of the DOC, especially Article 5 as a starter, then I think we’re in business,” Del Rosario said.

This would be assuming, of course, that China recognizes that there is a problem in the South China Sea, which it said there wasn’t at the recent Asean meeting in Burma, he said.

“You can’t solve a problem if you don’t recognize that there is one,” Del Rosario said.

Even before Del Rosario campaigned in Burma for the TAP, China had already rejected the proposal.

But Del Rosario said his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, had said that “something like it needed to be studied.”